knowledge practices through personal learning environments (ple)

Diverse Knowledge Practices through Personal Learning Environments (PLE)

Sabine Reisas, M.A.Kiel University, Germany


Kiel University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Media Pedagogy/Educational Computer Sciences

Why do students need a diverse repertoir of knowledge practices in higher education and what does it have to do with PLEs?

Sabine Reisas, M.A. (@srmpbi)

Image Reference: http://jaeselle.com/2012/04/planning-ness/



What course concepts should address

• Consider latent needs of students• Explore context situations and the use of technology• Initiate reflective processes

„Media are not only ‚new toys‘ but a possibility to gain experiences with practices in contexts.“ (Fiedler & Väljataga 2010)

Sabine Reisas (@srmpbi), Kiel University



Underlying assumptions

• Actual teaching and learning situations (in higher education) are affected significantly by personal learning environments and incorporated knowledge practices.

• Personal Learning Environments as activity systems are helpful for students to articulate knowledge practices.




Aim of this research

• to facilitate refining and co-production of diverse knowlege practices

• to allow critical reviewing of negotiated practices• to encourage students to take over responsibility• to enable students to transform their own Personal

Learning Environment (PLE)




Research questions• Is it possible to conceptualize a PLE as a sociocultural/ socio-

material practice?• Is a PLE in terms of the activity system a vehicle to make explicit

practices observable for empirical research ?• Which incorporated knowledge practices can become explicit?• Which interventions facilitate reflective processes?• Which kind of intervention are able to induce dissonance in

specific situation to challenge practices and therefore the transformative development of PLEs?

• How do students recognize discrepancies between the systemic relations of an activity system and how do students deal with them?




Personal Learning Environments as Practices

technologically-oriented view of PLEs

(e.g. Jones, 2008)

pedagogigcally-oriented view of PLEs

(e.g. Downes, 2007)

Co-evolutionary:practice-oriented

view of PLEs




Key concepts for the researchEthnography

(Garfinkel, 1967, 2003)

Activity Theory(Engeström, 2007)

Legitimate peripheral participation in

Communities of Practice(Lave & Wenger, 1991)

Sociomateriality(Orlikowski, 2007)

• Frictions of Intervention are visible in students` behavior

• Observing disorganized interactions to understand how activities are produced and maintained

• How and why students interact in specific context sitations

• Role of epistemic artefacts

• How students move from „peripheral participation to full membership in a community“

• Learning as participation

• Material and social practices are constitutively entangled

• Co-evolutionary perspective




Given task

Personal Learning Environments as socio-material Practices

Socialenvironment

Materialenvironment

Culturalenvironment

Constitutiveentanglement(Orlikowski, 2007)

dynamic activity system

subject object

tool

rules community


division of labor



Exploring seminar settings


1) Seminar Setting 2) Seminar Setting

Development of ebook concepts

(task: Exploring the act of reading)

Development of collaborative scenarios

(task: Exploring a collaborativ process)



Mixed-method approach

• Artefact analysis (Students as co-researchers)• Activity system analysis• Conversation analysis• Semi structured interviews




References


• Bryant, S. L., Forte, A., Bruckman, A. (2005). Becoming Wikipedian: Transformation of Participation in a Collaborative Online Encyclopedia. GROUP`05 (ACM), November 6-9, 2005, Sanibel Island, Florida, USA.

• Buchem, I., Attwell, G., & Torres, R. (2011). Understanding Personal Learning Environments: Litera-ture review and synthesis through the Activity Theory lens. In Proceedings of the The PLE Conference 2011 (pp. 1–33). Retrieved from http://journal.webscience.org/658/1/ PLE_SOU_Paper_Buchem_Attwell_Torress.doc

• Fiedler, S. & Väljataga, T. (2010). Personal learning environments: concept or technology?• Engeström, Y. (2007). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y.

Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 19–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge.

• Orlikowski, W. J. (2007). Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work. Organization Stu-dies, 28(9), 1435–1448.

knowledge practices through personal learning environments (ple)

Education

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learning situations

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latent needs of students

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